Displaying a 1000 players on the screen at any one time is a problem in it's own as players certanly want their avatar to be as detailed as they can. But a bigger problem is the bandwidth requirements. MMO employ several techniques to limit the amount of data required to send to one client so he can get a good quality update of players in the area. Putting a 1000 players in the same room would require high frequency updates of information being sent to each player, the amount of data getting sent from a standard server-client model would most likely topple over quickly when all 1000 players need to know what the other 999 players in the same room are doing several times per second.
Even your own connection would need to download quite alot of information depending on the amount of data needed for each player and at what frequency this needs to be sent. That is why they usually are using dynamic server allocations to be able to take the hits of players focusing into one area and employ as many techniques as they can muster to minimise the amount of data sent to any one player.
I think bandwidth is a large contributor to what in my opinion is a pretty boring "turn-based" combat system, I'd much rather see a fps-esque (fantasy games or not) like combat system but as most fps games this requires alot of data to be sent around to get a good and accurate experience.
IMO, ever since MMO's have gone mainstream and drawn in a lot of players from other genres, these developer's are catering more to that crowd since they are now the majority. Hence, semi-linear worlds and instancing, which further draws the "open world/massive world" feel out of most games.
Very True!
Also significantly less emphasis on grouping, catering to the SP + Lobby crowd.
Another side of this is financial. SP+Lobby games are seen as having greater financial potential over typical SP because piracy is usually impossible and subscriptions are a 2nd revenue stream after box sales. Another income stream is RMT for services (like WoW) or even cash shops.
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
Maybe because they do not wish to deal with the massive immature communites mmos bring ? Or maybe they just want to finish as quick as they can so that they can start making money asap.
I believe that whether or not a game comes across as 'Massive' is to do with how the world feels.
When you log into a game which you know is full of hundreds of instances, you loose that 'Massive' feeling because you are separated from one another. Sure you may be able to see 20 other people, but it's no longer a world.
If you then log into a game in which you know is one world in which the players are not separated it becomes more 'Massive'. Having predominantly played games with a strong open world PvP focus, it seems that these games have a very strong 'Massive' feeling to them.
I have never played Darkfall, but I've seen some replies about how those that do feel it has that "Massive' feeling. I have played Shadowbane and I definitely felt that 'Massive' element whilst playing. I think that the reason for this is because of the real risk throughout the world.
- You know that literally around the corner there could be someone who is going to want to tear you to shreds. He's not going to care if you're afk, grabbing a drink or fallen a sleep, and when you come back to your dead character you get that feeling that you're actually playing in a world.
- You know that somewhere across the world from you (in game) are your rivals, chatting, crafting gear, getting a group together to go do some PvP.
- You know that if you went AFK in the wilderness chances are very high you would come back to a dead character.
It comes down to the feeling of a real world. You know that there are people out there. They're doing their own thing, just like you, and sometime in the future, you can count on it, you're going to run into them.
MrGimpz Crash and Burn valeofshadows.21.forumer.com
Yeah, when I tried DF and saw that, I couldn't help but laugh. I don't mind grinding skills, but when you can bring them up by hitting trees and rocks...that's when you wonder about the logic of such a system.
So killing the same mob over and over and over is not as bad? EXP is about killing things. Skill is about using your weapon and actually doing something (or defense skills, they only raise when you are hit with that type of damage). Apples to Oranges? Each is unique, well except for the fact nearly every single game is a leveling game.
You don''t hit trees and rocks in DF, you never could with the exception for Archery at release. Now you have to hit another person or NPC. NPC's raise skills faster now, thanks to developers actually listening to their playerbase and making it eazier to skill up. I really hate it when people make stuff up.
..back on topic - 6 vs 6 is not massive. Who cares if you have 11 million subs, if your game can't handle more than 60 players in one area something is wrong.
Well, that's not what i saw when I played. A player using magic just casting at a wall, and when I asked what he was doing, he said 'Bringing up my skill'...I tend to believe what I see.
Never tried it myself as I found this rather dumb even if it was possible as DF is supposed to be 'skill' based. I would suspect that also includes player skills, not simply the stats of each ability. Inanimate objects don't fight back, so how can a skill be brought up logically in this manner?!
If they changed that now, good for them. Still doesn't stop me from having seen it. I really hate when people assume things of others by their own blind opinions.
I think part of the problem is that there are more players playing these days.
This means more folks logging on at one time, and server and info delivery technology cannot simply keep up with the demand. The solution? Segregation via instances, channels, and other servers.
Add in the fact that the bar for graphics, play options, customization and the like has been raised, and you have the issue compounded even more.
Along with innovations in the genre itself (world, play, etc), there needs to be advances in server side performance and information delivery... a tall order that goes beyond the average MMO company being much of this has more to do with Internet providers and the like.
I think part of the problem is that there are more players playing these days. This means more folks logging on at one time, and server and info delivery technology cannot simply keep up with the demand. The solution? Segregation via instances, channels, and other servers. Add in the fact that the bar for graphics, play options, customization and the like has been raised, and you have the issue compounded even more. Along with innovations in the genre itself (world, play, etc), there needs to be advances in server side performance and information delivery... a tall order that goes beyond the average MMO company being much of this has more to do with Internet providers and the like.
Yeah im sure there was problems with technology but I think that will be fixed very soon. New processors are coming out a 6 core amd as well as intel and if the i9 is hyperthreaded then it will be 12 threads on once so that will be sweet.
I think part of the problem is that there are more players playing these days. This means more folks logging on at one time, and server and info delivery technology cannot simply keep up with the demand. The solution? Segregation via instances, channels, and other servers. Add in the fact that the bar for graphics, play options, customization and the like has been raised, and you have the issue compounded even more. Along with innovations in the genre itself (world, play, etc), there needs to be advances in server side performance and information delivery... a tall order that goes beyond the average MMO company being much of this has more to do with Internet providers and the like.
Yeah im sure there was problems with technology but I think that will be fixed very soon. New processors are coming out a 6 core amd as well as intel and if the i9 is hyperthreaded then it will be 12 threads on once so that will be sweet.
That would be sweet.
Lets hope future game developers take advantage of that technology.
Still, part of the problem is providers. If Cox, AT&T, Charter, ComCast, etc don't hold things up on their end, the bottleneck on data flow here might render server side advances moot.
I think part of the problem is that there are more players playing these days. This means more folks logging on at one time, and server and info delivery technology cannot simply keep up with the demand. The solution? Segregation via instances, channels, and other servers. Add in the fact that the bar for graphics, play options, customization and the like has been raised, and you have the issue compounded even more. Along with innovations in the genre itself (world, play, etc), there needs to be advances in server side performance and information delivery... a tall order that goes beyond the average MMO company being much of this has more to do with Internet providers and the like.
Yeah im sure there was problems with technology but I think that will be fixed very soon. New processors are coming out a 6 core amd as well as intel and if the i9 is hyperthreaded then it will be 12 threads on once so that will be sweet.
And yet again the cost of making MMOs goes up again. Using this kind of technology is rather specialized and is currently a lot of work to use effectively.
Originally posted by Astralglide My machine lags a little with my graphics set to ultra (Dual Core 2.33, 4gb ram, 9800 gtx), but if I had a quad core with mutliple video cards and 8 or 16 gigs, then I would have NO lag, but I don't want to blow that kind of money so I adjust my settings a little
The quad core is only helpful for MMOs that supports it or if you run other programs at the same time.
Same goes for multiple garphics cards, few MMOs supports them and even if they do is the gain not so much as you would think. Here is a helpful link but note that the newest ATI cards isn't in the list yet.
The best thing for a MMO gamer is betting the fastest GFX card you can afford, my 295 GTX performs rather well in MMOs. Ram memory is important and a really fast dual core is better than a slower quad (of course is a really fast quad core even better).
But the cheapa@@ way is to buy a lot of ram, it is cheap and helps a lot. Some people also overclock their GFX cards, not reccomended unless you have a card with a good fan and heatsink and know what you are doing. I overclocked my old 8800 GT to run as a 8800 Ultra instead, worked fine and saved me a lot of money.
To get an idea of massive you should've played DAOC when it was in its prime.
A guild could claim a keep. If enemies killed guards at your keep you got a message in your guildchat stating a guard had been killed and by how many enemies.
One time the message said, "A Viking Huscarl has been killed with 350 enemies in the area."
I recall battles where 500+ people were going at it. The battles were huge, yeah the server would be chugging at times but they pulled it off. Sometimes you had to turn off everything to keep your framerate going, particles, names etc.
To get an idea of massive you should've played DAOC when it was in its prime. A guild could claim a keep. If enemies killed guards at your keep you got a message in your guildchat stating a guard had been killed and by how many enemies. One time the message said, "A Viking Huscarl has been killed with 350 enemies in the area." I recall battles where 500+ people were going at it. The battles were huge, yeah the server would be chugging at times but they pulled it off. Sometimes you had to turn off everything to keep your framerate going, particles, names etc.
Yes, DAOC was great and massive. :-)
However, in this age, if players are forced to turn everything down or off to get the game to run, it is labled as a failure, no matter how fun it is/was.
That is what today's devs face, for the bar is much higher now.
I think part of the problem is that there are more players playing these days. This means more folks logging on at one time, and server and info delivery technology cannot simply keep up with the demand. The solution? Segregation via instances, channels, and other servers. Add in the fact that the bar for graphics, play options, customization and the like has been raised, and you have the issue compounded even more. Along with innovations in the genre itself (world, play, etc), there needs to be advances in server side performance and information delivery... a tall order that goes beyond the average MMO company being much of this has more to do with Internet providers and the like.
Yeah im sure there was problems with technology but I think that will be fixed very soon. New processors are coming out a 6 core amd as well as intel and if the i9 is hyperthreaded then it will be 12 threads on once so that will be sweet.
Personally I think gameplay reasons trump tech in developers' minds. More players get more fun and a higher-caliber gameplay experience in an instanced game. Yes, the players who like world simulation are a non-zero group of people -- but they're incredibly outnumbered by the players demanding high-caliber gameplay.
When you add in the fact that instancing allows them to push the visual quality bar even higher, things start to look pretty imbalanced in developers' eyes.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Games with instancing do not deserve to have the first "M" in MMORPG.
Whether you're extreme to the right or left makes no difference. You're still an extremist.
As with all things in life, balance is the key. Instancing when done properly brings a lot of positives to a mmo. Anybody who is even remotely reasonable understands and appreciates this.
Games with instancing do not deserve to have the first "M" in MMORPG.
Whether you're extreme to the right or left makes no difference. You're still an extremist.
As with all things in life, balance is the key. Instancing when done properly brings a lot of positives to a mmo. Anybody who is even remotely reasonable understands and appreciates this.
This is very true a prime example of a game that has a balance of both is Wow. Granted all endgame is instanced the world as a whole isn't you can run from one tip of a continent to the other without one loading screen granted it would take a very very long time.
Games with instancing do not deserve to have the first "M" in MMORPG.
Whether you're extreme to the right or left makes no difference. You're still an extremist.
As with all things in life, balance is the key. Instancing when done properly brings a lot of positives to a mmo. Anybody who is even remotely reasonable understands and appreciates this.
Sure, but I prefer the level of instancing seen in Asheron's Call 1 as opposed to the over abundant use of it today.
edit: used a word I didn't mean (judicious). Multi-tasking has it's down moments for sure.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Games with instancing do not deserve to have the first "M" in MMORPG.
Whether you're extreme to the right or left makes no difference. You're still an extremist.
As with all things in life, balance is the key. Instancing when done properly brings a lot of positives to a mmo. Anybody who is even remotely reasonable understands and appreciates this.
Sure, but I prefer the level of instancing seen in Asheron's Call 1 as opposed to the over abundant use of it today.
edit: used a word I didn't mean (judicious). Multi-tasking has it's down moments for sure.
Agreed that instancing is overused. Sure wish I woulda played AC1.
MMORPGS these days suck. They instance all of their content. All of the PvE is instanced (except newbies leveling on trash mobs), all of the PvP is instanced.
Yet bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper, so is everything computer related.. And still these companies keep high subscription rates and will continue to raise them.
The funny thing is they will raise them even when they cut down so much on the bandwidth through instancing & cheaper hardware. Companies like Blizzard are cheap garbage companies who make shitty MMOs that shouldn't even be called MMOs.
Instancing PvE and PvP is probably what ruins newer MMORPGs for me. It's impossible to have meaningful PvP when PvE is instanced, and PvP in instances is artificial. Instanced PvE means guilds don't compete with the other guilds on the server for content, no one cares about killing PvE content in these games.
MMORPGS these days suck. They instance all of their content. All of the PvE is instanced (except newbies leveling on trash mobs), all of the PvP is instanced. Yet bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper, so is everything computer related.. And still these companies keep high subscription rates and will continue to raise them. The funny thing is they will raise them even when they cut down so much on the bandwidth through instancing & cheaper hardware. Companies like Blizzard are cheap garbage companies who make shitty MMOs that shouldn't even be called MMOs. Instancing PvE and PvP is probably what ruins newer MMORPGs for me. It's impossible to have meaningful PvP when PvE is instanced, and PvP in instances is artificial. Instanced PvE means guilds don't compete with the other guilds on the server for content, no one cares about killing PvE content in these games.
That's ironic considering that when you did play a genuinely massive game, all you ever did was the closest thing it provides to instanced PvE.
MMORPGS these days suck. They instance all of their content. All of the PvE is instanced (except newbies leveling on trash mobs), all of the PvP is instanced. Yet bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper, so is everything computer related.. And still these companies keep high subscription rates and will continue to raise them. The funny thing is they will raise them even when they cut down so much on the bandwidth through instancing & cheaper hardware. Companies like Blizzard are cheap garbage companies who make shitty MMOs that shouldn't even be called MMOs. Instancing PvE and PvP is probably what ruins newer MMORPGs for me. It's impossible to have meaningful PvP when PvE is instanced, and PvP in instances is artificial. Instanced PvE means guilds don't compete with the other guilds on the server for content, no one cares about killing PvE content in these games.
Bandwidth is getting cheaper so is everything computer related. That has anything to do with game sub? That has anything to do with cinema tickets? Cost of airplanes? Cost of gasoline? Price of gold bars? Your salary? Fact is, how much does bandwidth and everything computer related contribute to cost structure of MOOs?
Instancing is cheaper? Blizzard raise sub fees? What the hell are you talking about?
Instancing is artificial. Separating the player base to servers or shards are artificial. However, digital game is not artificial, defining the damage of fireball as a number without reference to which part of the body it hits is not artificial. Removing instances and reintroducing the old problems of kill steals, training, camps ... without offering a new solution is your best idea of gaming.
OK you feel instancing ruins your fun from MMOs. I am sorry you feel robbed of some of your fun. I am less dogmatic about instancing. So long as it is done in a way that makes the game fun to play for some hours, it is ok for me. Your view my view.
Hmm, you've quoted somebody who obviously dislikes instancing (for whatever reason, tastes are something personal) and you're discussing the merits of instancing below that?
Personally I think that instancing is a tool. You can make good use of that tool or you can make bad use of it. I don't think that the answer is to totally dismiss this tool, but rather to try and build upon the strengths and minimise the weaknesses.
On the other hand, I do see how companies recently either produce too many instanced types of games or goading their players into the instanced content.
MMORPGS these days suck. They instance all of their content. All of the PvE is instanced (except newbies leveling on trash mobs), all of the PvP is instanced. Yet bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper, so is everything computer related.. And still these companies keep high subscription rates and will continue to raise them. The funny thing is they will raise them even when they cut down so much on the bandwidth through instancing & cheaper hardware. Companies like Blizzard are cheap garbage companies who make shitty MMOs that shouldn't even be called MMOs. Instancing PvE and PvP is probably what ruins newer MMORPGs for me. It's impossible to have meaningful PvP when PvE is instanced, and PvP in instances is artificial. Instanced PvE means guilds don't compete with the other guilds on the server for content, no one cares about killing PvE content in these games.
Surprise.
Blizzard is adding guild leveling through competitive PvP (and PVE btw) play in the BG's (and dungeons) in CATACLYSM.
So ... you have a nice new Battleground competition (ladder based like Arena) against ... 100K players and you level your guild and your own ratings.
What's more MEANINGFUL than being rated and ranked against ... other players with your guild AND on a personal basis Add a new on realm based battle zone (like Wintergrasp was) and so... where do you find another argument now?
I think Blizzard are being very progressive with their new direction, it's just a shame WoW is such an old game now. Might be fun, though, to play the WoW game 1-85 then hit whatever dungeons are at 85 for a month or two and quit the game for SW:TOR next. year.
Comments
Displaying a 1000 players on the screen at any one time is a problem in it's own as players certanly want their avatar to be as detailed as they can. But a bigger problem is the bandwidth requirements. MMO employ several techniques to limit the amount of data required to send to one client so he can get a good quality update of players in the area. Putting a 1000 players in the same room would require high frequency updates of information being sent to each player, the amount of data getting sent from a standard server-client model would most likely topple over quickly when all 1000 players need to know what the other 999 players in the same room are doing several times per second.
Even your own connection would need to download quite alot of information depending on the amount of data needed for each player and at what frequency this needs to be sent. That is why they usually are using dynamic server allocations to be able to take the hits of players focusing into one area and employ as many techniques as they can muster to minimise the amount of data sent to any one player.
I think bandwidth is a large contributor to what in my opinion is a pretty boring "turn-based" combat system, I'd much rather see a fps-esque (fantasy games or not) like combat system but as most fps games this requires alot of data to be sent around to get a good and accurate experience.
Very True!
Also significantly less emphasis on grouping, catering to the SP + Lobby crowd.
Another side of this is financial. SP+Lobby games are seen as having greater financial potential over typical SP because piracy is usually impossible and subscriptions are a 2nd revenue stream after box sales. Another income stream is RMT for services (like WoW) or even cash shops.
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com
One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
Maybe because they do not wish to deal with the massive immature communites mmos bring ? Or maybe they just want to finish as quick as they can so that they can start making money asap.
I believe that whether or not a game comes across as 'Massive' is to do with how the world feels.
When you log into a game which you know is full of hundreds of instances, you loose that 'Massive' feeling because you are separated from one another. Sure you may be able to see 20 other people, but it's no longer a world.
If you then log into a game in which you know is one world in which the players are not separated it becomes more 'Massive'. Having predominantly played games with a strong open world PvP focus, it seems that these games have a very strong 'Massive' feeling to them.
I have never played Darkfall, but I've seen some replies about how those that do feel it has that "Massive' feeling. I have played Shadowbane and I definitely felt that 'Massive' element whilst playing. I think that the reason for this is because of the real risk throughout the world.
- You know that literally around the corner there could be someone who is going to want to tear you to shreds. He's not going to care if you're afk, grabbing a drink or fallen a sleep, and when you come back to your dead character you get that feeling that you're actually playing in a world.
- You know that somewhere across the world from you (in game) are your rivals, chatting, crafting gear, getting a group together to go do some PvP.
- You know that if you went AFK in the wilderness chances are very high you would come back to a dead character.
It comes down to the feeling of a real world. You know that there are people out there. They're doing their own thing, just like you, and sometime in the future, you can count on it, you're going to run into them.
MrGimpz
Crash and Burn
valeofshadows.21.forumer.com
So killing the same mob over and over and over is not as bad? EXP is about killing things. Skill is about using your weapon and actually doing something (or defense skills, they only raise when you are hit with that type of damage). Apples to Oranges? Each is unique, well except for the fact nearly every single game is a leveling game.
You don''t hit trees and rocks in DF, you never could with the exception for Archery at release. Now you have to hit another person or NPC. NPC's raise skills faster now, thanks to developers actually listening to their playerbase and making it eazier to skill up. I really hate it when people make stuff up.
..back on topic - 6 vs 6 is not massive. Who cares if you have 11 million subs, if your game can't handle more than 60 players in one area something is wrong.
Well, that's not what i saw when I played. A player using magic just casting at a wall, and when I asked what he was doing, he said 'Bringing up my skill'...I tend to believe what I see.
Never tried it myself as I found this rather dumb even if it was possible as DF is supposed to be 'skill' based. I would suspect that also includes player skills, not simply the stats of each ability. Inanimate objects don't fight back, so how can a skill be brought up logically in this manner?!
If they changed that now, good for them. Still doesn't stop me from having seen it. I really hate when people assume things of others by their own blind opinions.
I think part of the problem is that there are more players playing these days.
This means more folks logging on at one time, and server and info delivery technology cannot simply keep up with the demand. The solution? Segregation via instances, channels, and other servers.
Add in the fact that the bar for graphics, play options, customization and the like has been raised, and you have the issue compounded even more.
Along with innovations in the genre itself (world, play, etc), there needs to be advances in server side performance and information delivery... a tall order that goes beyond the average MMO company being much of this has more to do with Internet providers and the like.
Yeah im sure there was problems with technology but I think that will be fixed very soon. New processors are coming out a 6 core amd as well as intel and if the i9 is hyperthreaded then it will be 12 threads on once so that will be sweet.
Yeah im sure there was problems with technology but I think that will be fixed very soon. New processors are coming out a 6 core amd as well as intel and if the i9 is hyperthreaded then it will be 12 threads on once so that will be sweet.
That would be sweet.
Lets hope future game developers take advantage of that technology.
Still, part of the problem is providers. If Cox, AT&T, Charter, ComCast, etc don't hold things up on their end, the bottleneck on data flow here might render server side advances moot.
Yeah im sure there was problems with technology but I think that will be fixed very soon. New processors are coming out a 6 core amd as well as intel and if the i9 is hyperthreaded then it will be 12 threads on once so that will be sweet.
And yet again the cost of making MMOs goes up again. Using this kind of technology is rather specialized and is currently a lot of work to use effectively.
The quad core is only helpful for MMOs that supports it or if you run other programs at the same time.
Same goes for multiple garphics cards, few MMOs supports them and even if they do is the gain not so much as you would think. Here is a helpful link but note that the newest ATI cards isn't in the list yet.
The best thing for a MMO gamer is betting the fastest GFX card you can afford, my 295 GTX performs rather well in MMOs. Ram memory is important and a really fast dual core is better than a slower quad (of course is a really fast quad core even better).
But the cheapa@@ way is to buy a lot of ram, it is cheap and helps a lot. Some people also overclock their GFX cards, not reccomended unless you have a card with a good fan and heatsink and know what you are doing. I overclocked my old 8800 GT to run as a 8800 Ultra instead, worked fine and saved me a lot of money.
To get an idea of massive you should've played DAOC when it was in its prime.
A guild could claim a keep. If enemies killed guards at your keep you got a message in your guildchat stating a guard had been killed and by how many enemies.
One time the message said, "A Viking Huscarl has been killed with 350 enemies in the area."
I recall battles where 500+ people were going at it. The battles were huge, yeah the server would be chugging at times but they pulled it off. Sometimes you had to turn off everything to keep your framerate going, particles, names etc.
Yes, DAOC was great and massive. :-)
However, in this age, if players are forced to turn everything down or off to get the game to run, it is labled as a failure, no matter how fun it is/was.
That is what today's devs face, for the bar is much higher now.
Yeah im sure there was problems with technology but I think that will be fixed very soon. New processors are coming out a 6 core amd as well as intel and if the i9 is hyperthreaded then it will be 12 threads on once so that will be sweet.
Personally I think gameplay reasons trump tech in developers' minds. More players get more fun and a higher-caliber gameplay experience in an instanced game. Yes, the players who like world simulation are a non-zero group of people -- but they're incredibly outnumbered by the players demanding high-caliber gameplay.
When you add in the fact that instancing allows them to push the visual quality bar even higher, things start to look pretty imbalanced in developers' eyes.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Whether you're extreme to the right or left makes no difference. You're still an extremist.
As with all things in life, balance is the key. Instancing when done properly brings a lot of positives to a mmo. Anybody who is even remotely reasonable understands and appreciates this.
Whether you're extreme to the right or left makes no difference. You're still an extremist.
As with all things in life, balance is the key. Instancing when done properly brings a lot of positives to a mmo. Anybody who is even remotely reasonable understands and appreciates this.
This is very true a prime example of a game that has a balance of both is Wow. Granted all endgame is instanced the world as a whole isn't you can run from one tip of a continent to the other without one loading screen granted it would take a very very long time.
Whether you're extreme to the right or left makes no difference. You're still an extremist.
As with all things in life, balance is the key. Instancing when done properly brings a lot of positives to a mmo. Anybody who is even remotely reasonable understands and appreciates this.
Sure, but I prefer the level of instancing seen in Asheron's Call 1 as opposed to the over abundant use of it today.
edit: used a word I didn't mean (judicious). Multi-tasking has it's down moments for sure.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Whether you're extreme to the right or left makes no difference. You're still an extremist.
As with all things in life, balance is the key. Instancing when done properly brings a lot of positives to a mmo. Anybody who is even remotely reasonable understands and appreciates this.
Sure, but I prefer the level of instancing seen in Asheron's Call 1 as opposed to the over abundant use of it today.
edit: used a word I didn't mean (judicious). Multi-tasking has it's down moments for sure.
Agreed that instancing is overused. Sure wish I woulda played AC1.
MMORPGS these days suck. They instance all of their content. All of the PvE is instanced (except newbies leveling on trash mobs), all of the PvP is instanced.
Yet bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper, so is everything computer related.. And still these companies keep high subscription rates and will continue to raise them.
The funny thing is they will raise them even when they cut down so much on the bandwidth through instancing & cheaper hardware. Companies like Blizzard are cheap garbage companies who make shitty MMOs that shouldn't even be called MMOs.
Instancing PvE and PvP is probably what ruins newer MMORPGs for me. It's impossible to have meaningful PvP when PvE is instanced, and PvP in instances is artificial. Instanced PvE means guilds don't compete with the other guilds on the server for content, no one cares about killing PvE content in these games.
That's ironic considering that when you did play a genuinely massive game, all you ever did was the closest thing it provides to instanced PvE.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Bandwidth is getting cheaper so is everything computer related. That has anything to do with game sub? That has anything to do with cinema tickets? Cost of airplanes? Cost of gasoline? Price of gold bars? Your salary? Fact is, how much does bandwidth and everything computer related contribute to cost structure of MOOs?
Instancing is cheaper? Blizzard raise sub fees? What the hell are you talking about?
Instancing is artificial. Separating the player base to servers or shards are artificial. However, digital game is not artificial, defining the damage of fireball as a number without reference to which part of the body it hits is not artificial. Removing instances and reintroducing the old problems of kill steals, training, camps ... without offering a new solution is your best idea of gaming.
OK you feel instancing ruins your fun from MMOs. I am sorry you feel robbed of some of your fun. I am less dogmatic about instancing. So long as it is done in a way that makes the game fun to play for some hours, it is ok for me. Your view my view.
Hmm, you've quoted somebody who obviously dislikes instancing (for whatever reason, tastes are something personal) and you're discussing the merits of instancing below that?
Personally I think that instancing is a tool. You can make good use of that tool or you can make bad use of it. I don't think that the answer is to totally dismiss this tool, but rather to try and build upon the strengths and minimise the weaknesses.
On the other hand, I do see how companies recently either produce too many instanced types of games or goading their players into the instanced content.
Surprise.
Blizzard is adding guild leveling through competitive PvP (and PVE btw) play in the BG's (and dungeons) in CATACLYSM.
So ... you have a nice new Battleground competition (ladder based like Arena) against ... 100K players and you level your guild and your own ratings.
What's more MEANINGFUL than being rated and ranked against ... other players with your guild AND on a personal basis Add a new on realm based battle zone (like Wintergrasp was) and so... where do you find another argument now?
I think Blizzard are being very progressive with their new direction, it's just a shame WoW is such an old game now. Might be fun, though, to play the WoW game 1-85 then hit whatever dungeons are at 85 for a month or two and quit the game for SW:TOR next. year.
Does massive necessarily have to refer to the amount of players on the screen? Or just the amount of players on the server?
O_o o_O